To be so angry at the Chinese government

[HildegardeCrowe]

Because they didn’t shut the wet markets down permanently after SARS so another pandemic was inevitable. The rest of the world is now putting pressure on China to end it’s wildlife trade but this won’t be easy. Most of the world is in lockdown because of this trade and it’s so depressing to think history will repeat itself if China doesn’t get its act together.

The more I learn about how the Chinese abuse wild animals the angrier I get - the latest thing I read about is how they make the lives of bears a misery by extracting their bile.

Surely this is a PR disaster for China?

[BovaryX]

We should be thanking China

@PlanDeRaccordement

Your fanatical defence of a one party state is curious. On December 30th Dr. Li Wenliang warned his medical colleagues about the novel virus and was forced to admit to illegal behaviour The virus was noticed in In November. In January, the annual party congresses went ahead across China as usual. Lockdown in China did not happen until January 23rd Throughout that period, international travel from China continued uninterrupted. This coincided with peak ski season in Europe and the role that played may be pivotal. This virus originated in Wuhan. It was a regional problem which has become a global pandemic The planet is under house arrest. Its casualties stretch from Ecuador to Estoril. It will make its lethal progress through refugee camps and shanty towns. Every single person across the globe affected by this has every right to know how this virus started and how it crossed the globe. Those demanding that there should be no scrutiny of its evolution? Imagine what these people would be saying if it had emerged in Kansas? Imagine if whistleblowing US doctors were forced to sign confessions? Imagine if US officials were all over social media blaming Sweden? Those so eager to defend the authoritarian regime's response would be howling for justice. The motives of those trying to distract, deflect and silence criticism? They are highly questionable. OP, you are perfectly right to feel angry. And everyone has every right to keep asking questions

[Thehop]

They also allow taiji mirders. Watch the cove on Netflix

Hideous how they treat animals. I’ll never recover from going with my dad as a teen and seeing a dog tied up and out in a barbecue alive.

Hideous. Absolutely hideous.

[sashh]

Covid 19 isn't the only pandemic happening right now.

Anyone remember BSE? The 'new variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease'? Measures to limit people developing vCJD are still in force throughout the world.

What about HIV? Another pandemic that has killed about 40 million people.

[MangoFeverDream]

Plan this post is not for you, since it is clear you are beyond help at this point. Despite evidence to
the contrary, you seek to paint this as a natural phenomenon that could ‘happen anywhere’ and ignore the human errors behind it.

To everyone else, this FT article gives excellent coverage of WHO’s failures (which Plan admits!) and the pressure the WHO was under by Chinese officials. Of course, as Plan has signposted, it seems that the Chinese government will now throw the WHO under the bus to deflect blame. Guess the WHO should have remained more objective, no?

Here it is: www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6a68

Interesting tidbits:

Taiwan said its doctors had heard from mainland colleagues that medical staff were getting ill — a sign of human-to-human transmission. Taipei officials said they reported this to both International Health Regulations (IHR), a WHO framework for exchange of epidemic prevention and response data between 196 countries, and Chinese health authorities on December 31

December 31? Why, China only reported to the WHO that very day. Seems like maybe they didn’t give the whole story ....

Taiwanese government officials told the Financial Times the warning was not shared with other countries

China’s health ministry only confirmed human-to-human transmission on January 20, after the WHO said in mid-January there might be “limited” human-to-human transmission but stepped back from this view on the same day

Appears to me that the WHO tried to force China’s hand here.

The challenge of managing the relationship extended to negotiations over the wording of a report following a joint mission to China last month. The nine-day trip comprised 12 WHO experts and 13 Chinese officials and was focused on the country’s response to the outbreak. Three of the WHO officials also visited Wuhan, the centre of the outbreak, as part of the mission. The WHO’s Bruce Aylward, the Canadian epidemiologist who led the team, described the process as “fantastic”. But he told the FT there was “huge back and forth” with Chinese officials about what went into the report

A huge back-and-forth with Chinese officials...I wonder what they were discussing....


Dr Aylward said Chinese health officials did not want to refer to the pathogen as “dangerous” as they regarded such terminology as reserved for diseases with higher mortality rates

🤔

Clifford Lane, clinical director of America’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who was one of two US officials on the mission, said the WHO team’s Chinese members had “a great desire to be precise”. He said the debates over wording did not amount to censorship but represented a “bit of spin”

Only a bit of spin ... with regards to a deadly pathogen. Absolutely disgusting.

[SharonasCorona]

I wonder if you can talk about the massive human rights violations and forced Labour camps in Uighur regions or is that racist too?

Yes we should talk about that. It reminds me on Nazi detention of Jews. The world said ‘never again’ but it’s happening right now.

[MangoFeverDream]

There will be similar demands on China to shore up already heavily indebted, overstretched Western countries

Which makes the origins of the virus very, very suspect IMO

Don’t tell me you think the US military spread it? Or is it a lone cyclist now? Chinese propaganda moves fast ...

[Mittens030869]

@sashh And there are still millions dying of malaria every year, especially in sub-Sahara Africa. The vast majority are children under 5 as well.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

BibiBirdie

Try and control your anger please. I merely corrected your statement that MERS originated in China. You were wrong. No need to personally attack me and ask what race I am.

But most disturbing is you saying They need to pay the fuck up or be wiped from the map

This is a racist call for genocide. And it eerily echoes Nazi statements about the Jews who they also cast as scapegoats for their bad economy...just as you also did by saying they have killed the world's economy, even after the virus it will take years to get back on track financially

[UtterlyPerfectCartoonGiraffe]

@Thehop The Cove was about dolphin killing in Japan, not China.

[JazzyTheDog]

It’s not unreasonable to be angry with the proliferation of wet markets, animal cruelty is abhorrent. But they are only a tiny part of why this pandemic is a problem for the world, there’s been multiple failures of WHO, and governments across the board including the UK, in how this whole situation has been handled. It’s simplistic to focus on one small part of the overall picture and think it should shoulder all the blame.

[cushioncovers]

I am angry with the Chinese government for not sorting out their wet markets/dog, cat eating customs and cruelty. But then I also look at the industrial animal farming that goes in all over the world and I think we are all probably as bad as one another.
IMO it's a lack of compassion and arrogance that has got us all into this mess. One country's problem is no longer just their problem. We all need to take more responsibility for what goes on in the world.

[Boshmama]

If people stopped abusing and exploiting animals globally we wouldn't have these types of pandemics. And yes, I'm including eating farmed animals in this (BSE anyone?)

It's about time people started talking about it - animals abuse and exploitation has caused the deaths of thousands and thousands of people around the globe.

[BovaryX]

What about HIV?

What about it? Why are you engaging in whataboutery? Covid-19 is certainly the only pandemic to have caused the cessation of global economic activity There is nothing comparable to what is happening across the planet at this moment. Stop pretending that HIV is comparable.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

To be fair MangoFeverDream, an illness with a 5% mortality rate is in a gray area to be considered dangerous. Especially when you compare it to the other dangerous viruses out there with deaths rates from 35% to 70%. 5% is much closer to seasonal flu than to the known dangerous viruses. It’s a valid debating point.

[Tellmetruth4]

I even read that in their desperation to deflect criticism, the communist party are getting the media to spread the belief that the reason why China ‘defeated’ the virus whereas the west’s crisis has gotten out of control is because westerners are dirty. Outrageous.

Whilst I do not believe the virus was spread intentionally, they do have questions to answer. I also think that in order for them to not benefit financially, Chinese state ownership/shareholder owning of all U.K. firms should be reviewed and where possible reversed or in the likes of buying up our 5G network, stopped altogether. We should also focus on paying off any debts to them ASAP so they don’t own us. We should not be doing any business with the Communist party.

[Mittens030869]

@BovaryX Agreed. There have been numerous other epidemics throughout history, but none have had the impact of COVID-19. The closest equivalent was Spanish flu at the end of World War I.

[ilovemydogandmrobama2]

Not sure I'm angry at the Chinese government as much as the British government who has all the science available as, say, New Zealand, where there is 1 Covid 19 death.

[MangoFeverDream]

CNY was the last week of January. At that time there is massive movement in the country which would have been almost impossible to stop. At that time the Chinese government made the only decision they could: they allowed people to travel to their families/home provinces and then stopped them going anywhere else

Jan. 20 is when they finally announced human-to-human transmission (Chinese doctors like Ai Fen had evidence before but were punished for speaking out) Chinese New Years Eve is on Jan. 23, so plenty of people would have already headed out to their hometowns by a few days then (the rich can fly or take the bullet train but working class Chinese need to leave 3-4 days in advance to make it in time on the slow trains).

Also, China is not like the West. They actually did lock down and prevent people from leaving on CNY because they can. But millions had already left before then.

And to answer another poster, who apparently does not know this bit of history, but you used to have to get government permission to leave the country, so yeah, the concept of ‘letting’ people leave the country is actually there, especially if you are not from the first- or second-tier cities.

[SharonasCorona]

@Palladin it’s not Chinese culture

It’s only a small minority of Chinese people who eat wild animals, stop generalising across the country.

Also read up on why the government allowed this decades ago. Millions of Chinese people were starving, and couldn’t feed their kids. Yes, I am for the banning of all wildlife trade in China but that doesn’t mean I can’t sympathise with Chinese people trying to feed their families.

[Thehop]

@UtterlyPerfectCartoonGiraffeyoure absolutely right, I’m sorry. I get cought up in whale/dolphin welfare emotionally and don’t think it through properly.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

Bovary X
Epidemics and diseases can indeed be compared. Just because something does not 100% match COVID, doesn’t make it not comparable.
HIV kills a million a year even now with our best medical science. I’d say in terms of human lives lost, it is definitely comparable.

[Tellmetruth4]

I do agree with others relating to animal welfare around the world, in that there are many places including the U.K. where animals are badly treated although I’ve yet to hear of animals being blowtorched alive here.

In any case my family went mainly Vegan (although the kids still eat eggs) last year as we personally think eating flesh is nasty and don’t trust the sources of meat - the horse meat scandal was the final straw.

[Windyatthebeach]

Just slotting this in here..

[BovaryX]

@PlandeReccordement

If you wish to compare a virus which has closed down the planet, shut borders, grounded flights and caused global commerce to cease with HIV, which did none of the above? Knock yourself out.